We’ve had an amazing Summer as ever – a fantastic mix of seeing family and friends and doing lots of Sabar Drumming with our wonderful teacher Modou Diouf from Senegal. We did three performances with Jappo, Modou’s Sabar drumming group the most exciting one being at Drum Camp in Suffolk.

We’ve spent a lot of time away in our camper van all over the country in good weather and bad but mostly had a lovely time.

I’m going to be moving my main website from chandramoon.co.uk to here as it’s too much trying to keep multiple sites live and updated on top of Facebook and regular emails so it should get more interactive here.

I’ve been very busy recently as I’ve got two gigs coming up. The first one is here in Bristol and it’s going to be great fun. I’ll be playing a few tunes with Paddy and Jimi then we have a fantastic flamenco set from Flamenco Loco.

Our upcoming gig at Khan!

Then at the end of May we’ve been invited to play at the Bath Fringe Festival. We’re going to do a similar format with a set from me then a flamenco set from Ganesha & Co at the Old Theatre Royal.

We’ve also been recording an old song which I’ve never worked on before.

Peter and I have been on a great drumming weekend and have a long weekend coming up of sabar playing over the bank holiday weekend.

On Saturday 21st March we celebrated my uncle and his wife’s Diamond Wedding anniversary – what an amazing achievement to stay happily married for so long!

Congratulations to Paul and Eunice on their Diamond Wedding Anniversary

Peter and I then went off to crew on a Dutch barge we helped move from Ramsgate back to Battersea. She’ll be moored there for a month then we’ll do the same journey back to Kent. We’ve been involved with the boat for many years and been on nearly all her journeys.

We spent the best part of a week on the Medway and the Thames and were so lucky with the weather which turned windy and squally after we’d got safely back! Here are just a couple of the hundreds of photos I took!

And here’s one of me:

The next few weeks I’ll be focussing on my music as we’ve landed a big gig at The Bath Fringe Festival so I need to practice a lot and do some promotion. More to follow!

This week we laid my dear Aunt Joan to rest – she was 94 years old and had been healthy most of her life. Her time had come but I feel for her husband who is still alive – they would have been married for 70 years this April!!!

However, it was lovely on Monday to go back to my cousin’s after the ceremony and see the family for a change as we hardly ever meet up. Both my kids came to support which was great.

I also have very positive news musicwise as me and my little band have been offered a great slot at the Bath Fringe Festival on May 28th at the Old Theatre Royal in Bath. We’re going to do a set of my music followed by a set of flamenco music by my persussionist and his band Ganesha and Co. They are brilliant and I’m really looking forward to the whole thing. It will mean a lot of practicing and promotion but our first really proper gig as a band.

This coming week we’re off boating to move a barge from Ramsgate back to London which will be brilliant as long as the weather’s ok as it can be very choppy in a barge navigating round by Margate etc.

Here in Bristol I’ve been following the saga of the Stapleton Allotments and Feed Bristol’s fight to save a tranche of land that’s been earmarked to plough a bus lane right through the middle. The project hosts an amazing food project which grows fresh produce on the excellent soil there and also there are many private allotments as well that people have had for years. Although Bristol City Council are going to create new allotments and plant some trees you can’t replace the quality that will be lost. It’s true we need a better bus system but why not slightly re-route it. Anyway here’s a broadcast from some of the people who’ve been living in the trees in the cold weather to try and protect our “green capital”.

In other news I’m thrilled that we’ve landed a terrific gig in Bath as part of the Bath Fringe festival – my group are going to play a full set then we’re going to put on a fabulous flamenco act which is fronted by a brilliant young guy with a sensational voice. More when it’s properly confirmed.

I’m dealing with a tricky family situation at the moment as well and not looking forward to having to break sad news to a loved one.

Well I can’t say I’ve got anything spectacular to say but I’m determined to get back into blogging again. It helps me remember my own life when I look back on it ha ha! I probably won’t write much about my private life as I don’t like to break confidences about my family and friends.

This evening I have a practice with my little band comprising Paddy on the keys and Jimi on percussion – both excellent musicians in their own right. We have the possibility of putting on a gig soon at a lovely little venue in Bristol called Khan plus a chance to bid to play at the Bath Fringe in May/June. Plus, on my daughter’s suggestion, I’ve started to get back on the open mic circuit to meet other musicians for both inspiration and also to find people to put on at our Electrosonica music nights. I’ll probably re-create a lyrics page here too and some other pages with paintings and photos.

I think the old blog did more for me than I realised, as the more I reflected on my creative life, the more I felt I had to live up to it myself – if that makes any sense. So, if I tell you I’m determined to do some more painting as well – it also reminds me to get on with and not just think about it. While I was in London my son gave me the most lovely, dinky watercolour set of paints that you can carry around in your bag and sketch or paint something whenever the mood takes you and it inspired me to do a couple of quick pictures – one of them is a small painting of my son with his clown red nose on and I really enjoyed doing it as it didn’t involve a pencil at all – just brush strokes which was a first for me! This in turn inspired me to get back to work on a portrait of a friend of Peter’s that I haven’t touched in months.

I’ve also got myself a new camera – a Canon SX40HS, second hand but really brilliant and I absolutely love taking photographs and hope to put the best ones here. Anyway – there’s a lot going on at the moment and rather than just a sentence on Facebook I’m going to blog – mostly for myself but if you enjoy reading it too, well that’s great! Do let me know if you’re blogging somewhere too and I’ll come and read your posts. I miss the old Modblog days but actually, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get that community feeling going again with a bit of effort on all our parts. Many of us are still online friends and some of us have also met in the “real” world too – so that’s my take on it anyway.

At last I’ve set up this new blog as Efx3 is being closed. I’m actually typing this on my Mac mini tablet to see how it works and it’s easy to use so I can blog “on the hoof”.

I’ve been awfully slack about blogging since Facebook came along, just doing short status updates but I’ve just been reading through my old posts and it makes me remember how useful a fuller record of things is to me even if hardly anyone reads this!

So, I’m going to try and keep it up again.

This last couple of weeks P’s been away in Gambia and I’ve made a big effort to do creative things and see people. I spent 3 days with my daughter and grand daughter which was lovely and a couple of days in London with my son. I’ve been on visits, been to the theatre, I’ve done 3 open mics, finished a song, done a watercolour painting and cleaned the house as well as had to deal with a few issues and family matters!

Today I’m off to a Sabar drumming workshop with Karim and when I get back this evening P will be home.

I really am going to try and get back to blogging so see you again soon.